THIS WILL COST LIVES

Word of two significant Obama appointments has by now been leaked to the press. Barack Obama will appoint former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, and retired Admiral Dennis Blair to head the National Security Agency. Blair has a controversial history as head of the military's Pacific Command, and little intelligence gathering experience. Panetta has none.

So what do we make of these appointments? First of all, even die-hard liberals such as Sen. Diane Feinstein are questioning Panetta's appointment, due to concerns over his utter lack of experience. The purpose of these unexpected appointments is to symbolize a break from Bush Administration policies. As one AP article put it: "Harsh interrogations, waterboarding and extraordinary renditions ... and warrantless wiretapping are over."

FACT: The above mentioned intelligence-gathering methods - controversial though they may be - have uncovered pending terrorist plots and foiled them before they could be executed. In other words, the methods that President-elect Obama plans to scrap have saved lives. Here and abroad. Had it not been for the above mentioned techniques, we would never have known of the trans-Atlantic airliner bombing plot that would have surpassed the death toll of 9/11, among dozens of other attacks. Had it not been for waterboarding (which never harmed or killed a single person), Kalid Sheikh Mohammed would have taken his secrets - and the details of the 9/11 plot - to his grave.

The point is this: The intelligence gathering techniques that Obama plans to scrap save lives. Eliminating them will cost lives.

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It looks like we're heading back to the peaceful days of innocence of the 90's, when we neutered our intelligence services and turned a blind eye to ominous and developing threats that were growing off our shores. What we forget about those threats is that while we were busy turning our blind eyes, those threats had already reached our shores in the form of one Mohammed Atta and his 18 friends - armed with cash and box-cutters.

Here we go again.